Post Tagged 'regulation'

On-demand ride-sharing services such as Uber and Lyft are on the rise, allowing smartphone users to request cab drivers with the touch of a button. But though the services are popular with consumers and drivers alike, they’re finding less favor among their taxi-company competitors and the unions and government bureaucrats who protect them. Continue Reading...

Brian Burrough has a mostly enjoyable New York Times review of a book that’s mostly positive about my native state’s mostly small-government formula for economic growth. Some excerpts:
Ms. Grieder, a onetime correspondent for The Economist who now works at Texas Monthly, and a Texan herself, has written a smart little book that … explains why the Texas economy is thriving. Continue Reading...

In the New York Post, Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg looks at “the spread throughout America of economic expectations and arrangements directly at odds with our republic’s founding” and asks what the slow walk to “Europeanization” means for the long term. Continue Reading...

At least Obamacare comes at us head on. The greater legislative threat may be the one that most Americans have never heard of. Economist Scott Powell and Acton friend Jay Richards explain in a new piece in Barron’s:
While Obamacare received more attention, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, also known as Dodd-Frank after its Senate and House sponsors, … unleashed a new regulatory body, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to operate with unprecedented power. Continue Reading...

Earlier this month, India experienced the worst blackout in global history. Over 600 million people—more than double the number of people in the U.S. and nearly one in 10 people in the world—were left without power. Continue Reading...

A Holland, Mich., teenager is being stopped from opening a hotdog cart due to city zoning laws. It’s really disheartening when you consider the fact that this young person was trying to be responsible and work to help his family and build up savings for his future. Continue Reading...

It’s hard to think of anything more onerous than preventing enterprising people from entering the market. To do so is to interfere with their ability to serve others and engage in their vocation. Continue Reading...

I saw Joe Carter’s post on Entrepreneurship and Poverty earlier today, and it got me thinking back to a subject that has been nagging at me for quite a while. It seems to me that starting a business is simply too hard these days, and for rather artificial reasons. Continue Reading...

In “Recycling Bins Go Big Brother on Cleveland Residents,” FastCompany.com writer Ariel Schwartz reported that the city is introducing a $2.5 million “Big Brother-like system next year to make sure residents are recycling.”
Chips embedded in recycling carts will keep track of how often residents take the carts to the curb for recycling. Continue Reading...

Bruce Tinsley’s comic strip Mallard Fillmore has long been an excellent examination of conservative principles, current events, and problems associated with government interventionism. The strip appears in over 400 newspapers across the country. Continue Reading...